


Found

by cat_77



Category: Prodigal Son (TV 2019)
Genre: Gen, Isolation, Kidnapping, Non-Consensual Drug Use, Sensory Deprivation, Withdrawal
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-20
Updated: 2020-09-20
Packaged: 2021-03-07 15:48:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,265
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26570122
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cat_77/pseuds/cat_77
Summary: Missing for days, locked away from the world, and possibly higher than a kite.  They had found him though, and that was all that mattered.
Relationships: Malcolm Bright & team
Comments: 5
Kudos: 89





	Found

**Author's Note:**

> For the "isolation" entry at hc_bingo.
> 
> * * *

The good news was that they found him. The bad news was that they could not ascertain the state he was in immediately. No, that was wrong, she could sum it up in a single word: Fucked.

It was quite the setup once they got to it. Of course, getting to it involved roughly a week and a half’s worth of searching, scrounging, of following up the most remote clue or chance happenstance. And “remote” and “chance” were truly the words of the day given that their final lead was a supposedly abandoned asylum in the middle of nowhere with more hidden and blocked off rooms than was strictly necessary. 

She had started to lose hope, if she was being honest with herself. She wasn’t sure if she could take one more empty room, one more false lead, but then she spotted it: a single footprint. Not that such a thing was unusual in a place favorited by junkies and squatters, but the building had been cleared out and this section in particular supposedly held absolutely nothing as said junkies and squatters avoided it like the plague and swore that it was haunted. Unless the ghosts wore modern women’s size eight hiking boots and jotted outside for a brief foray in the rain before stomping around, she was fairly certain they finally had a lead.

The footprint appeared from a supposedly solid wall and had a matching, much more faded one precisely one pace away. Which led directly into another wall. One special flashlight and actual heat vision goggles later – which she was decidedly not asking JT about as they clearly served a purpose – and they got a reading. Technically multiple. Someone was behind what looked to be nothing but brick and plaster and that someone happened to have crap on their hands when they touched the special hidden lock which meant Dani now knew precisely where to touch. She wore gloves to do so because she was both a professional and also had no clue what the crap was nor did she strictly have a desire to find out.

Marybeth Agnew of the Size Eights and her husband Jeffrey tried to make a run for it through who knew what kind of hidden passageways. She fired a shot, the team with her fired a taser. Jeffrey got kneecapped and Marybeth spasmed on the way to the ground. 

“Where is he?” Dani demanded, gun at the ready. Marybeth wasn’t bleeding, but that could be remedied.

“As far as he’s concerned, nowhere,” the redhead sneered around what might have been a laugh. Well, tried to. It was less effective as her body still vibrated with the current. Officer Jacobs might have possibly made sure of that. She probably shouldn’t have lunged at him.

Dani didn’t like that answer, and neither did JT or Gil if their shared expressions were accurate. They started yet another search, JT readying his special goggles again, but she found that it was not entirely necessary. There was a cart full of supplies next to a spot on the floor that was far more scuffed up than the rest of the place. Also, this particular doorway wasn’t nearly as sealed and hidden as the other one, with the faintest hint of what looked to be steam of all things leaking out of the seal.

She opened the door to the sharp scent of something she couldn’t quite identify. Not quite floral. Not strictly chemical. It billowed out at her and the logical part of her mind said she should wait for a filtered mask knowing Forensics had all sorts of equipment like that in their usual kit where they were waiting in the driveway to the place and could get her one in ten minutes or less. The illogical part of her tugged her shirt up and over her nose with one hand and held her gun at the ready with the other.

There were two machines spitting out… something. One at either side of the room creating a cloud of the stuff. She glanced at them to see if she could figure them out in a second or less before she took in the rest of the tiny windowless place that might have been a storage closet at one time, just a really large one. It was hard to see clearly past the cloud, but there was a definite shape looming in the center. Larger than their target but, then again, their target was undoubtedly held in some way, so it made a level of sense.

JT and Gil must have had the same idea at the same time, or else she missed them actually voicing their decision. The cords of the machines were removed from the generator – one by yanking and one by slicing – and the smoke all but dissipated in a matter of moments.

What it left behind was something she could do without ever having seen.

“Found him,” she said around a swallow. It scared her that there was no response to her proclamation, either by the target himself, or by her colleagues.

She knew precisely when the others saw him based upon JT’s profanity and Gil’s sigh of “Damn it, Bright.”

The man in question did not respond. He didn’t even flinch. No, that’s not true, he shivered ever so slightly, but nothing more.

“Who thinks this shit up?” JT asked as he checked the room for anything else that would jump out at them. She tried to ignore the manacles and the bare mattress save for the spare thought that at least he likely wasn’t in his current predicament for the entire time he was missing. “Do people sit around and try to come up with the most ass-backwards way of revenge? Try to figure out how they can take something that should be like four steps and make it forty?” JT continued, mainly to make noise, mainly to get a reaction of some sort.

She let him bitch while she tried to figure out just how in the hell they were going to get their consultant out of this one.

Bright was stretched out on a rig of some sort. Homemade and reminiscent of the old exercise things that would flip around that were supposedly good for core-work or blood-flow or something like that. Those tended not to come with the added thick cuffs for both wrists and ankles forcing the user into an almost spread-eagle pose. They also tended not to have so much extra… stuff… attached.

There was an IV line in his left arm and the port for another in his right that she wanted to rip out immediately. The bags attached read only saline and nutrients, but there had been syringes on the cart near the door and she’d be stupid to think they hadn’t been used. What appeared to be a catheter disappeared into the scrub pants he wore, the only clothing he had been left with. Well, unless you counted the blindfold and giant headphones over his ears.

“How you two doing?” Gil grunted, voice muffled by his own shirt. She didn’t feel quite as bad about ignoring protocol if he was doing the same. She glanced back for clarification as Bright was clearly the one who needed assistance and she had had approximately thirty seconds to figure out just what that assistance would entail. Arroyo had obviously addressed JT and herself though and, off of her look, clarified, “I’m having flashbacks to concerts I would totally deny ever attending myself. We’re going to need bloodwork done on us by the time we get him out of here.”

Flashback was an interesting choice of word as she could now better identify just what they were surrounded by. Non-standard, or at least not base street level type, scented with extra, likely hippy something or another to better open the senses or some such thing as the Agnews had ties to both a drug ring, and a supposedly somewhat legitimate herbology business that was likely a cover. She doubted it added actual value or really altered the experience, but didn’t doubt that the price for such an item was upped anyway. Oddly, the Agnews were not murderers like their usual ilk, and not directly tied to Bright’s father either. They had been part of a very specific cabal, and a large one at that, until relatively recently. They specialized in designer options that most gangs would probably only dabble in, but not make their primary profit off of. The dissipation and lack of further disbursement would help the team fight whatever was used, but there was definitely a chance of at least a contact high at this point. 

There were still other matters to attend to at the moment though, matters that JT summed up with, “So he’s at least ten days meds-free, higher than a kite, numb to the world, and can’t see us or hear us coming? This should be awesome.”

That last part she figured she could handle with the least amount of damage. Gil helped her with the convoluted system to lock the rig into place so it would stop teetering, and JT called for medical assistance. She touched Bright’s arm to let him know that they were there, disheartened but not surprised when there was no reaction. She pulled up on one side of the headphones and sighed when she spotted bright orange earplugs beneath them. Clearly the Agnews didn’t want to leave anything to chance.

There was a jerk of a sweaty head when she removed the headphones completely, likely a response to the decrease in weight and pressure, and she debated the worth of fishing the little bits of orange foam from his ear canals. “Bright?” she tried. Too quiet and she knew it. At Gil’s nod, she tried again a little louder.

Malcolm muttered, mumbled something she couldn’t quite make out. She tilted her head in an attempt to hear him better, and got the barest whimper of, “Not real. It’s not real. None. Nothing…”

She assumed he was hearing the distorted, muffled version of what she said and decided clarity would work in her favor. She trusted that JT and the others would have her back, so she reached for the orange, only to be stopped by a signal from Arroyo. “There’s no telling how long he’s been like this. Just assume sensitivity at this point.”

She bit back the response that she assumed that on a daily basis with Bright, and not just when he was wired up and drugged to the rafters. Instead, she took a steadying breath and removed the plug from his right ear, planning on tossing it to the floor save for a tech that was smart enough to wear a mask who appeared to put it in an evidence bag for her despite her possible contamination. “Bright?” she whispered, entirely cognizant of just how silent the rest of the team was being in deference to the situation.

Malcolm’s head jerked back. Hard. It ricocheted off of the contraption before he righted it, entire body going tense as if expecting life to spin out of control by the motion. Well, spin even more out of control. It spoke of his treatment as far as she was concerned, and his constant need to be hyperaware of everything and its reactions even as that awareness was purposefully lessened to make that task that much more difficult.

“Kid?” Gil tried. The annoying beeping that she could just make out from the main hallway sped up even faster, and she belatedly realized he had a little clip on one of his fingers sending his readings out to be monitored. Given that the beeping had been there when she shot Agnew, she figured there’d be no issues removing at least that. She reached for it and the same tech as before beat her to it.

“His heart rate and respiration are really high,” the tech, Reichert she thought his name was, commented. “Probably making him breathe in more of the chemicals, either on purpose or inadvertently. Which, wow, I don’t want to know your tolerance if none of you are even bothered by this stuff.”

Gil cut a hand through the air and he stopped the commentary instantly as he took in the true gravity of the situation. He winced an apology visible over the mask, but the combination of their voices seemed enough to drag Bright at least partially back to reality. “Not real. He’s not here. No one’s here. Alone. Can’t hurt if no one’s here to do it…”

It was anyone’s guess what he was seeing at this point, what he was experiencing. “Hey, Bright, we’re right here,” she tried. “Literally standing next to you even. We’re trying to figure out how to get you out of this.”

Malcolm shook his head, skull grinding against the metal support it rested on. “Said that before,” he whispered. Another shake, then a slight tilt of his head. “Or maybe not as that wasn’t real and this isn’t real so can it be before if it never happened? Shut up. Just, shut up… I can talk this through, you do it enough. I do it enough. Words… Words have meaning and words exist for a reason. Only thing that does in this place. Only thing that’s real,” he babbled.

“This is fun,” JT mumbled, but she could hear the concern to his tone.

“No!” Malcolm exclaimed out of nowhere. “There can’t be more, there’s no room. Too many already! You’re not here. No one is…” He was almost hyperventilating now and she wasn’t quite sure what to do about it. They needed to get him out but, in the state he was in, there was no telling if he would fight or collapse or anything in between. She knew he hated sedatives, but was tempted to request that they give him one anyway save for the fact they had no idea what was already floating around in his system and how poorly he’d react to yet another chemical added to the mix.

She turned to ask what they should do next, but found her boss had already decided on the next steps while she was contemplating how screwed they all were.

“We’re here, Bright,” Gil told him. His voice was purposefully steady, confident in contrast to the whimpering waver they had just heard. He reached over and ruffled what he could of the sweaty hair before he let his hand drift down to rest where neck met shoulder and offered it the slightest squeeze.

“Real?” Bright questioned, voice full of hope.

“Yeah, kid, we’re real,” Gil confirmed. “We’re going to take out the other plug and take off the blindfold now, okay? Then you can see how real we are for yourself.”

“It’s going to seem bright,” Dani warned. “Close your eyes and open them very slowly,” she directed. She figured that light was as foreign of a concept to him as sound at this point, and could only guess at how he’d react.

The first blindfold was freed, and then the one under that. She swallowed when she saw the bruising that lay beneath, and the imprint of the lines that told how long he had been stuck wearing the thing. His eyelashes fluttered and, as always, he didn’t listen to anyone’s advice and immediately opened his eyes only to recoil back again and squeeze them tightly shut.

“Wow, it’s like she warned you or something,” JT sighed. He rubbed his forehead and offered them all the look of the long-suffering.

Dani huffed despite herself.

“You’re… you’re here?” Bright asked. Absolutely no one was going to point out the hitch to his voice. If asked, they would write it off as a combination of the inhalation and lack of speech prior to his question.

“We’re here,” JT answered, loud enough to catch his attention. Bright’s watery eyes tracked from him to Gil to her and back again. He blinked, but that could have been from how bloodshot they were more than tears.

“A-Agnews. Marybeth and Jeffrey. Case I worked on with the FBI…” he rattled off. She tried not to be amused at the way he needed to share information, even in the state he was in. He wouldn’t have known what they had figured out, wouldn’t have known that the Agnews were cuffed and captive versus in the wind.

“We got them,” she promised instead.

“Good… good,” he nodded. A cough. A wheeze of a sorts. “They… I think I’m really high right now. Like, really. Colors are, well, definitely there. Not sure if you’re actually here, but the colors are.”

“They definitely dosed you,” she agreed. She watched as his eyes tracked to her, then to some unknown point beyond. He flinched again and squeezed them tightly, but she had a feeling it wasn’t against anything she herself would be able to see.

“Ou-out, please? Get me out of this thing?” he asked, and that was something she felt they could give him.

The medics stepped forward to help do just that, and she watched the full body tremor that happened every time the protective gloves touched his skin. “Hey, hey…” she tried to draw his attention back to her. She had lowered her shirt from her face a while ago to show him she truly was who she said she was despite knowing she probably inhaled more of the crap in the air and might have issues of her own in the long run. So far, it was doing little more than giving her a headache and casting the world in a slightly higher contrast than usual.

After verifying with the medic closest to her that she was already contaminated from the airborne substance and that there didn’t appear to be anything else at work except what was being pumped into his veins and that he had already swabbed the area in question anyway, she took off her gloves to rest a hand on his bare arm. He jerked away as if on instinct, but eventually relaxed into the touch. “We’re right here,” she insisted.

“C-cold hands, must be real,” he replied through chattered teeth. She rolled her eyes at his antics but took it as a sign that at least partial coherency was at play.

She kept her hand there while they unhooked him from everything, felt it each time he tensed, calculated the causes and the likely damage done. Gil watched, as did JT, and she knew they had reached the same conclusions around the time they needed to undo the cuffs. Both men stepped forward and bodily held then hauled Bright down to the floor, not quite enough space in the room to fit a gurney with everything else going on and it wasn’t like they were going to leave. He collapsed in a heap, but Gil made sure it was a slightly controlled and slightly less harmful heap than it could have been. JT held his arm while they clamped off the last of the IV but readily admitted, “I ain’t helping with the catheter, man.”

The medics stepped back for a moment and the lack of steam and other bodies made her shiver in the moist air. She figured the assholes probably messed with that as well, altering the temperatures and screwing with him every time he seemed to possibly adapt to what they did to him. She let go of him for just long enough to grab one of the blankets offered and soothed him when he shuddered again. She helped Gil wrap it around him and then scooted back and out of the way when they finally lifted him to bring him outside to the waiting transport.

She didn’t get to ride with him as she and JT were ushered to a separate ambulance to get checked over, but she watched as he lurched and fretted and generally fell in and out of reality until they closed the doors to bring him in for a full workup and treatment.

It was several hours, a full scrub down, a panel of bloodwork, and a meal before she was allowed into his room at the hospital. Mercy was used to their own precinct and warned only not to disturb him but let all three in at once. JT, of course, made the requisite comment that Bright was already disturbed, but she knew his heart wasn’t in it.

Dehydration was a given, as was malnutrition. Bright really did not have the excess weight to spare, and looked ghostly and gaunt against the pale sheets he was loosely wrapped in. They had a fresh nutrient line in, this one actually medically approved, but she heard the warning about a gastro tube if he didn’t take to actual food soon enough. He was also on painkillers, antibiotics, and she suspected he had been given at least one dose of an anti-psychotic or the equivalent. They were cautious about giving him his usual cocktail of medications even though he had to be suffering withdrawal from them, less unsure of the interactions and more wary of giving him too much too soon. It didn’t help that the symptoms for an overdose of benzodiazepines were damn near identical to symptoms of withdrawal and both were similar to signs he just needed more. 

It made her question why anyone would prescribe such a thing, as well as if his massive doses were ever truly justified. He seemed to think that they were, even still expressing symptoms taking them, but had been on them for far too long to know much else. She was also determinedly ignoring Mrs. Whitly’s possible role in first getting them into him and starting the cycle. That was neither here nor there at the moment as there would be so little left in his blood that the doctors thought it best to wait for everything to fade completely and then build back up the dosage as needed. She had pulled up the list of possible side effects of such a choice, and didn’t like the options, to say the least. He could cycle for literally months, manic and delusional and damn near passing out at the drop of a hat, and that was if the possible seizures didn’t cause permanent damage.

“They were going to leave him there,” Gil said apropos of nothing. He had claimed the chair originally next to the bed, but JT had already moved two more damn near just as close. They would move if/when the Whitly’s arrived, but both were still several hours out and they took what they could. “The Agnews,” he clarified in case she didn’t know who he was talking about. “They were packing up their stuff. They were going to leave him there, strapped in and lost in all of that, until he wasted away or his body gave out from the stress.”

“Interesting way to murder your enemy,” JT mumbled. “Simpler ways though. Quicker too.”

“Quicker would have meant we didn’t find him in time,” Dani pointed out despite knowing there was no need to do so. She glanced back at the bed, at the shadows and the pale. Bright was scrubbed clean and his scruff shaven smooth, and he still looked like death not quite warmed over. “You really pissed them off something good,” she whispered.

Gil stretched for a moment before he settled back into his chair again. “Kid shut down their entire operation and cost them millions of dollars. Not to mention he put over half their family away for a very long time. How these two initially escaped is something I’d like to ask the agent in charge, myself.”

Dani didn’t doubt that. She did doubt it would actually be effective, however. The FBI was not known for admitting their mistakes. Carrying grudges, covering up things they wanted to keep unseen? Yes. Admission of error? Never.

The body on the bed jerked hard enough for the nasal cannula to get jostled. “Not here. Only in my head… Not the same.” The muttering was barely audible, but telling. The latest tox screen came back damn near clear, but nightmares couldn’t be scrubbed clean nearly as easily as blood. The list of side effects rattled through her head again, and she wondered if they would ever know which were from the drugs and which were from the trauma.

She’d have been embarrassed at her gut reaction to reach out at his distress, remembering how he had calmed at her touch before, but noticed hers was one of three hands now making contact through the rough fabric. “We’re here,” she insisted. “You’re safe. Or at least as safe as you ever are.”

Incredibly pale eyes blinked open, unfocused, confused. “You’re here?” Bright breathed.

“Can’t shake us that easily,” JT grunted with a pat to the other man’s bandaged forearm. Gil just cupped his cheek before righting the cannula.

There was a twitch of a cracked lip, and then those eyes fluttered closed again. “I like this hallucination. Can I keep it for a while?” he asked around a yawn. She would have answered, but it would have been a breath wasted as he was already out again.

She settled in for a long night. Ten days was an eternity, and the recovery was going to take much, much longer. That was fine though as she knew at least three people who were in it for the long haul, probably more if given the chance.


End file.
